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Friday, December 09, 2005

Two Chinese Students Fatally Shot in Ottawa on Dec 6th, 2005

Linhai Tian(Bob) from Qinghai and Tailang Liu (太郎) from Inner Mongolia, two young promising lives were killed by a cold blood Vietnamese trash. Both 20 years old. Bod wrote in his profile, a simple person working on nontrivial stuff. 太郎 wrote, hard life is the steps to success. These were the dreams they had before the double homicide 2:45 am Dec 6th, 2005.

According to witnesses, five Chinese students went to a local Karaoke place, Fullhouse Karaoke Tea Cafe, on 718 Somerset St West late night. The Chinatown Karaoke Cafe is popular among local Chinese student community. The two students had an argument with a group of Vietnamese over the use of the bathroom. One Vietnamese later walked out the Cafe to retrieve a handgun, and forced into the room occupied by the Chinese students. The murderer shot 7 times at Tian sitting close to the door, and 2 times at Liu with the gun pointed at his left eye.

One local Chinese was angered by the slow investigation progress when he read the police's statement saying that the weapon was believed to be a 'semi-automatic handgun'. He questioned, "how come bullet shells were all over the place, and they still couldn't tell exactly what kind of gun is it".

Wish you two fellow Chinese students peace up above. At the least, you are with your good friend. Any Chinese who made comments on the cars they drive, shame on you!

Linhai Tian didn't even want to go to the Chinatown karaoke bar for a birthday party, but at around 1 a.m. Tuesday, his friends finally convinced him to go. Ninety minutes later, he was shot to death.

Mr. Tian, 20, had been just a few blocks away, finishing up rice noodles with the longtime girlfriend he followed to Ottawa from Shenzhen, China.

Mr. Tian, known to his friends as Bob, drove her back home, then headed to Fullhouse Karaoke and Bubble Tea, where he met up with best friend Tailang Liu, also 20.

Then, just after 2:30 a.m., the men got into an argument with an apparent stranger inside the Somerset Street West bar. It ended with the stranger drawing a handgun and shooting Mr. Liu once in the face, and pumping Mr. Tian with at least 10 bullets.

Yesterday, as police detectives worked around the clock to track the killer, Mr. Tian's girlfriend met with the Citizen. Shaken, running on little sleep, and fearing a gunman on the loose, Selina Mi said she wanted the public to know that her boyfriend's life was far removed from violence, let alone organized crime.

"Bob is not the kind of guy who would stir anything up. If anything, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "We never even talked about gun violence because it was so far away from our world. As students, our life was isolated and pure," she said.

According to his friends, Mr. Tian spent his free time studying business administration at the library. An avid photographer, he would also wake up early, again and again, to try to capture the perfect sunrise in the city.

"He was a warm-hearted person to everyone around him. Now that he's gone, I want everybody to remember the good things about him. Everybody that knew him says it was unfair, and that this shouldn't be his fate," she said through a translator.

He and his girlfriend, also an international business student, had planned to take skiing lessons and hoped to one day make it to Niagara Falls, a place Mr. Tian had always talked about photographing.

Though he didn't sing on stage like his best mate, he was considered the life of the party, always cracking jokes.

He was a top student who made a name for himself on the side as the guy to call when you needed your computer fixed.

Once they arrived in Ottawa, the two men were inseparable, according to friends -- whether it was playing basketball, having a drink at the bar, or cruising the neighbourhood.

Mr. Tian had been taking English as a Second Language training at Carleton University before moving to Algonquin College's photography department this year. Mr. Liu was in the first year of the business administration program at Algonquin College.

Tall with long hair, Mr. Liu drove a light blue Ford Mustang, its seat covers decorated with stylized black and blue skulls, while Mr. Tian drove a silver Mercedes C230. Both cars, which had Quebec plates and featured Chinese flag stickers over the gas caps, were left parked one in front of the other at parking meters on the opposite side of Somerset Street West from the karaoke bar.

The two friends spent many weekends at the Ha-Ha Restaurant and Karaoke bar in the industrial district of Ottawa's east end. At the time, it was the city's only place set up with Asian karaoke tunes.

In October, Mr. Liu entered a karaoke contest and sang I'm a little bird -- a popular Chinese rock ballad about finding happiness and friendship.

He didn't make it to the finals, but he had a good voice, said bar owner Rudy Gao who called them both "good boys."

Making things worse, Ms. Mi, 22, was called to the Chinese Embassy yesterday, where she said an official kept asking her insulting questions. Was Mr. Tian a gambler? Did he owe a loan shark? "I feel extremely outraged with (wrong) assumptions that are insulting," she said.

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